Systems have been introduced for the remote management of an outdoor lighting network (OLN). For example, lighting units of an OLN may be remotely managed to provide control over lighting behavior (e.g., scheduling of the on/off times of the lighting units and/or setting dimming levels of the lighting units) and/or to monitor lighting unit characteristics (e.g., light source status, energy consumption, lighting unit specifications). Management of outdoor lighting networks may provide one or more benefits to customers (e.g., municipalities) such as energy savings, reduced maintenance costs, and/or reduced lighting pollution.
Existing OLNs often utilize proprietary control and/or communication protocols that are not open to other device suppliers. Although the underlying connectivity technologies used in certain OLN implementations may be standard (e.g., certain wireless and/or power-line communications standards), the control and/or communication protocols are often proprietary. Accordingly, a customer with a plurality of OLNs must either utilize only a single vendor for those OLNs or maintain different systems and procedures to remotely manage the OLNs. For example, an OLN customer managing three different OLNs from three different vendors must use three different central management systems (CMS) and related procedures to remotely manage those OLNs—as well as different non-interoperable lighting control products and devices.
It has been proposed to develop a fully customized control and communication protocol between a single CMS and each of a plurality of proprietary OLN implementations. In such a proposal, the CMS would control all functionalities and capabilities of all the OLN implementations—including vendor specific features. However, integration of the entirety of multiple proprietary OLN implementations would require significant effort and expense in light of the many different features and capabilities available in different OLN implementations. Moreover, the complexity of a unified CMS that could support and manage the entirety of the different features and capabilities available in different OLN implementations may make such CMS burdensome to operate.
Thus, there is a need in the art to provide methods and apparatus related to management of multiple unique lighting networks by a customer from a unified CMS, while optionally overcoming one or more disadvantages of other proposals.